The Carpenter's Tale
by Old Toad
Summary: Not all magic things are made by magicians, and sometimes you can make one and not know it.


_Back in the 1960s a coach carrying holiday makers, mostly middle-aged, broke down in the Trossachs. They were left stranded for a couple of hours and to pass the time one of them, a retired Head Mistress, suggested that they take turns to tell stories. 'True or made up,' she said, 'it doesn't matter.'_

_This is one of them._

**The Carpenter's Tale**

What gives this story any interest is that it's true.

I've always worked with my hands. I've done all sorts of things, but my real interest is working in wood. I've worked as a carpenter, but also as a cabinet maker, which takes real skill. A lot of my work has been domestic: repairing furniture, fitting bookshelves, re-hanging doors, all sorts. For a while I worked for a stage magician, making his props: vanishing cabinets and that sort of thing. I got a kick out of that, and it paid well while it lasted. I could tell tales about that, but the strangest job I ever had was to do with a wardrobe!

The customer wanted a wardrobe made out of apple wood. At least, that was how it began. When I went to see him, in a rambling old house in the country, it turned out that all the wood he had was from a single apple tree. It had been blown down in a gale and he had had it cut up and transported all the way from London. As soon as I heard that I had my doubts: if a tree is blown over there is usually a reason, probably a rotten core. However, it looked sound enough, just not very big. I thought he wanted something small made, for a child; but no, he wanted a large wardrobe, the bigger the better he said. Well I had to tell him there just wasn't enough wood. Even if there was, I said, apple wood is very soft, much softer even than pine. It's not suitable for a large piece of furniture.

But I had travelled a long way, and there was money to be made, so I wasn't going to give up easily. If you want it for the scent of the wood, I said, why not use an existing wardrobe and line it with your apple wood. Well he gave it some thought, and agreed. For, he said, if there's some wood left over it might be used to make something else. They say 'the customer is always right,' and he was the one with the money, but I thought that strange then and I think it strange now. He was eccentric alright, and for an explorer who had been all over the world, remarkably other-worldly.

We agreed that I'd look for a wardrobe, suitably paid for my trouble of course. I soon found one in the local town, an ugly Victorian monstrosity which had had the back stoved in – meaning the wardrobe, though that pretty well fitted the town as well. I thought we had enough apple wood to replace the whole back. The professor – did I say he was a professor as well as an explorer? – paid for it and had it delivered to the big house. I dismantled it and with help from the village got it up the stairs and along all the corridors into the room where he wanted it. It was to store fur coats he said, both his – for in those days men did still wear them – and his elderly mother's.

Then the real work began, for the tree trunk had to be turned into planks. He said that there was a sawpit on the estate that could be used. He had found some old fellow in the village who'd worked one and knew exactly how it was done. He had already had a couple of labourers dig out the pit ready for use, for it hadn't been used for over thirty years. I had to tell him that it was quite unsuitable: a sawpit was fine for cutting oak floorboards for his house, but we needed to cut thin planks in a weak and soft wood. They had to be thin to get the area, you see, for it was a big wardrobe. However we did use the sawpit to square up the wood, cutting the log down to a beam. I had to admit it was a very nice looking piece of timber, and the smell when it was being cut! Mind you, this was costing him plenty: it took me a full day just to restore his rusty old saw – a great two handled affair easily five foot long – what with fitting new handles and sharpening it with a whetstone.

When we had a beam of timber which two men could carry I took it off to a company I knew which had a band saw. They were used to cutting hardwoods, oak or mahogany for example, but they were happy to try apple wood and made a fine job of it in no time; cutting 3/8" planks, squaring them off and sanding them smooth. Then it was back to the old house and getting the lengths up into the room with the wardrobe.

I had to break it to him that if he wanted a good job done we would have to leave it until the wood had dried out a bit and seasoned. He was fine with that, saying that he 'expected good results to take time.' We stacked the lengths so that they wouldn't warp; the room was empty apart from that dirty great wardrobe so there was space. I told him it would need about six months, but it was a year before I came back to finish the job.

Building the back of that wardrobe took me a long day. He – the professor – seemed pleased with the result, and didn't want the wood stained or varnished. However, the job was not quite finished: he had a roundish piece of wood from the bottom of the trunk which I'd cut off and discarded for being too knotty. He asked me if I'd carve something on it and make it into a plaque. He wanted it glued to the new back, 'just to finish it off and put your signature on it.' Well, I told him I was no Grinling Gibbons. He had to laugh at that and said that he wanted something rustic or homely, whatever came in to my head. By then I was tired and just want to make for home, so I got my set of chisels from the van and started to carve a face. It was meant to be a self-portrait; what I ended up with was a relief carving of a lion's head, staring out, very stylised, with a great mane around it. I used the last of my glue to stick it in place, and was finished at last.

So much effort and expense for a cranky piece of furniture; I just hope he got some pleasure out of it. He certainly seemed ridiculously pleased by my silly lion. Well, that's my story folks; as I said at the start: the only interesting thing about it is that it's true.


End file.
